Thinking, critique, mindfulness: Further thoughts on what poets do

초록

What is the thinking that poetry does? In his essay, The origin of the work of art, Martin Heidegger proposes a distinction between two poetic modes-Dichtung and Poesie-in which the former is an extra-linguistic framing essence which makes Poesie, the manifestation of poetry in language, possible. In another essay, What are poets for? the philosopher claims technology creates a fissure of forgetfulness between selves and contexts, and that To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This ficto-critical paper-written after the experience of a week's vipassana¯ meditation-reads Robert Hass' poem Meditation at Lagunitas as a text that aims for chthonic reconnection between objects, experience, and language. In speculating that processes of active and non-linguistic practice are generative and humanising, this paper re-reads meditation as a mode of gnostic self-extinction (after Eliot) which can enable access to intuitive zones (Heidegger's Dichtung), and which situates an understanding of reality that transcends ordinary comprehension. © 2014 Taylor and Francis.

키워드